5 ms·

We already knew that the mortality rate and hospitalization rate of children was low. Low isn't zero, of course, but it's lower than that of adults and the elde

We already knew that the mortality rate and hospitalization rate of children was low. Low isn't zero, of course, but it's lower than that of adults and the elderly. The real question in my mind is the prevalence of Long COVID and other longer lasting changes. Having seen the debilitating effects of post-viral fatigue syndrome (non-COVID, but still very similar) I would caution everyone to do as much as possible to avoid getting illnesses that are known to trigger extended disability like this. A COVID infection isn't a binary outcome of live or die. There's a lot of potential for lasting damage that isn't fully studied yet, so we need to stop treating the statistics as a simple matter of life or death. It's also misleading to consider the statistics for children in isolation because children obviously don't live alone in isolation. If kids get a contagious illness, the parents are highly likely to get it. This is especially true for younger children, as any parent will tell you.

infinite8s 5y ago
Also given the fast evolution of the virus (with the newest variants way more infectious and deadly than the original), it's not a given that the low effects in children will continue. Especially if children remain the only vulnerable population - it's conceivable that a variant that is way worse for children will arise.
dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
No doubt that post-viral fatigue is a thing, but I wonder how much of Long COVID is the collective COVID anxiety and fear that continues to be fomented by all information sources (news, media, socials, etc). At this point we need to go back to pre-COVID in terms of how much attention it receives. We have vaccines, time to move on, the pandemic is over. Basically COVID needs to take a similar mental profile as the flu, which is that we annoyed everyone about vaccines yearly but other than that it was not nightly news and discussion, with warnings plastered everywhere like it's the Cold War. Even worse you have leaders branding this fear+anxiety-laced behavior as the "new normal" I think behaving as-if the pandemic is over will do collectively far more for the well-being + psyche of fatigued citizens who have likely felt some measure of hope disappear over the past year. It does no benefit to keep circulating disproportionate levels of information about an uncertain and vague threat when we have the solution in vaccines. At this point "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" as the saying goes.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  > the pandemic is over This is surprising to read, guess it depends on where you live? Different countries are still at different stages of the pandemic, and it is most certainly not over for a lot of them, especially with the delta variant causing a third/fourth wave.
  - Tarsul 5y ago
    especially when talking about UK, it's far from over (no matter what Boris Johnson is telling his people). With 30.000 cases per day and more opening up planned (and the Euro finals tomorrow), more and more people will get covid. Even if the death rate will be low compared to last year, people will get long covid. Probably hundreds of thousands of people. There are already 400k people in UK who suffer for more than 1 year from long covid. [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/almost-400000-have-had-long-covid-symptoms-year/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/almost-400000-ha...
  - dannyw 5y ago
    Australian here, in Sydney, we just entered our harshest lockdown days ago. We have achieved more or less zero COVID cases until Delta came. Fully vaccinated rate: 6% Ability for under 40s to get a vaccine: Only if you lie.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/07/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-10-july-2021.pdf https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021... is a good summary of Australia's vaccine rollout.
      - dannyw 5y ago
        What these statistics don't show you: even if you are an eligible <39 year old, the earliest booking you can make now is in october.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mikem170 5y ago
> The real question in my mind is the prevalence of Long COVID and other longer lasting changes. Are there any numbers on long covid in children? I would assume that those numbers are probably pretty low, also. I agree with you that covid outcomes are not binary. The same as for other viruses, especially those that affect internal organs.
Gwypaas 5y ago
About zero for children. Long-term symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection in school children: population-based cohort with 6-months follow-up (Preprint) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v... Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/obm0wy/longterm_symptoms_after_sarscov2_infection_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/obm0wy/longterm_sy...
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > About zero for children. That's not what the study says. They found that the seropositive group of 6 to 16 year olds was more likely to report a symptom beyond 12 weeks than the seronegative group. 4% of the seropositive students versus only 2% for the control group. The study authors conclude that the prevalence is low, but they do not conclude that it's about zero. For comparison, Polio is estimated to be asymptomatic or extremely mild in 90% or 95% of cases. Polio only moves to the central nervous system in about 0.5% of cases, and only about 2-5% of children with CNS infection die (15-30% of adults with CNS involvement). That's a relatively small percentage, but at scale it's a devastating number of people impacted. At epidemic scales, you can't simply waive away small percentages in the 2% range as inconsequential when it translates to millions of people impacted.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  "9% versus 10% reported at least one symptom beyond 4 weeks, and 4% versus 2% at least one symptom beyond 12 weeks" That's not low for a virus which is infectious as Delta, and it's certainly not "about zero".
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    So 9% of seropositive and 10% of seronegative reported at least one symptom beyond 4 weeks. I.e. the background level is around 10% and the seronegative had "more" long covid than the ones who actually had covid in that group. Although this is pure randomness with such close measurements.
    - 5y ago
jl6 5y ago
The tough question is: how do the long-term, hard-to-pin-down, variable physical health effects of post-viral syndrome compare to the long-term, hard-to-pin-down, variable mental health effects of lockdown, social isolation, job insecurity, and disruption?
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  That's a false dichotomy, especially in countries which are planning to open up in spite of the science. Aside from Long Covid, there's also a danger of adult's not being able to work, as people either self-isolate or are too ill to do their jobs. Remote won't necessarily fix this - partly because if you're ill at home you're still ill, but also because there are many jobs which need people on-site. If you get a huge peak at the same time, not only are hospitals overwhelmed - already happening in the UK - but other critical services are also endangered.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  There's a wide spectrum between full lockdown and zero precautions taken. We were never choosing between one or the other, and very few places actually went into full lockdown. Even some of the cities with the strictest regulations still felt like business as normal, albeit with masks, after about April or May of last year.
- afiori 5y ago
  For a good analisys of related questions i recommend: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Let's not kid ourselves, there was never a proper lockdown. Barely anything changed besides working from home and kids having remote school for a few months. Nearly everything remained open with only half measures taken and most people ignored social isolation as well.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
roenxi 5y ago
> the prevalence of Long COVID and other longer lasting changes. That, and it will also be interesting to discover how different it is from the ordinary flu. I remember the last time I had a proper flu (well before COVID) it was months before I felt like I'd gotten over it even though the visible symptoms cleared up in a week or so. The background rate of life-altering disease always seemed rather high to me. Life is far messier than what a "healthy/sick" binary can capture.
rjsw 5y ago
I would be interested to know if there has been any attempt to correlate Long COVID in children with them having prior allergic responses.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Another related question is whether “long COVID” (which feels imprecise to me), is something that should require everyone to lose their individual rights to decide what risks they undertake? In my opinion, if people are worried about it then they should just restrict themselves, rather than blocking everyone else from [going to school, opening their business, collecting rent, etc]. One reason I feel that way is that studies have shown that lingering issues like ARDS (which is now seemingly lumped into “long COVID”) are linked to obesity or vitamin D deficiency. It seems to me that limiting one individual’s freedom to accommodate the poor lifestyle choices of another individual is morally wrong. Lastly I think your closing comment that parents are highly likely to get infections from children is misleading. Numerous studies show children are less likely to transmit COVID (example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h...).

infinite8s 5y ago

Also given the fast evolution of the virus (with the newest variants way more infectious and deadly than the original), it's not a given that the low effects in children will continue. Especially if children remain the only vulnerable population - it's conceivable that a variant that is way worse for children will arise.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago

No doubt that post-viral fatigue is a thing, but I wonder how much of Long COVID is the collective COVID anxiety and fear that continues to be fomented by all information sources (news, media, socials, etc). At this point we need to go back to pre-COVID in terms of how much attention it receives. We have vaccines, time to move on, the pandemic is over. Basically COVID needs to take a similar mental profile as the flu, which is that we annoyed everyone about vaccines yearly but other than that it was not nightly news and discussion, with warnings plastered everywhere like it's the Cold War. Even worse you have leaders branding this fear+anxiety-laced behavior as the "new normal" I think behaving as-if the pandemic is over will do collectively far more for the well-being + psyche of fatigued citizens who have likely felt some measure of hope disappear over the past year. It does no benefit to keep circulating disproportionate levels of information about an uncertain and vague threat when we have the solution in vaccines. At this point "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" as the saying goes.

ricardobeat 5y ago
> the pandemic is over This is surprising to read, guess it depends on where you live? Different countries are still at different stages of the pandemic, and it is most certainly not over for a lot of them, especially with the delta variant causing a third/fourth wave.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  especially when talking about UK, it's far from over (no matter what Boris Johnson is telling his people). With 30.000 cases per day and more opening up planned (and the Euro finals tomorrow), more and more people will get covid. Even if the death rate will be low compared to last year, people will get long covid. Probably hundreds of thousands of people. There are already 400k people in UK who suffer for more than 1 year from long covid. [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/almost-400000-have-had-long-covid-symptoms-year/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/01/almost-400000-ha...
- dannyw 5y ago
  Australian here, in Sydney, we just entered our harshest lockdown days ago. We have achieved more or less zero COVID cases until Delta came. Fully vaccinated rate: 6% Ability for under 40s to get a vaccine: Only if you lie.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/07/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-10-july-2021.pdf https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021... is a good summary of Australia's vaccine rollout.
    - dannyw 5y ago
      What these statistics don't show you: even if you are an eligible <39 year old, the earliest booking you can make now is in october.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mikem170 5y ago

> The real question in my mind is the prevalence of Long COVID and other longer lasting changes. Are there any numbers on long covid in children? I would assume that those numbers are probably pretty low, also. I agree with you that covid outcomes are not binary. The same as for other viruses, especially those that affect internal organs.

Gwypaas 5y ago

About zero for children. Long-term symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection in school children: population-based cohort with 6-months follow-up (Preprint) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v... Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/obm0wy/longterm_symptoms_after_sarscov2_infection_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/obm0wy/longterm_sy...

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> About zero for children. That's not what the study says. They found that the seropositive group of 6 to 16 year olds was more likely to report a symptom beyond 12 weeks than the seronegative group. 4% of the seropositive students versus only 2% for the control group. The study authors conclude that the prevalence is low, but they do not conclude that it's about zero. For comparison, Polio is estimated to be asymptomatic or extremely mild in 90% or 95% of cases. Polio only moves to the central nervous system in about 0.5% of cases, and only about 2-5% of children with CNS infection die (15-30% of adults with CNS involvement). That's a relatively small percentage, but at scale it's a devastating number of people impacted. At epidemic scales, you can't simply waive away small percentages in the 2% range as inconsequential when it translates to millions of people impacted.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
"9% versus 10% reported at least one symptom beyond 4 weeks, and 4% versus 2% at least one symptom beyond 12 weeks" That's not low for a virus which is infectious as Delta, and it's certainly not "about zero".
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  So 9% of seropositive and 10% of seronegative reported at least one symptom beyond 4 weeks. I.e. the background level is around 10% and the seronegative had "more" long covid than the ones who actually had covid in that group. Although this is pure randomness with such close measurements.
  - 5y ago

jl6 5y ago

The tough question is: how do the long-term, hard-to-pin-down, variable physical health effects of post-viral syndrome compare to the long-term, hard-to-pin-down, variable mental health effects of lockdown, social isolation, job insecurity, and disruption?

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
That's a false dichotomy, especially in countries which are planning to open up in spite of the science. Aside from Long Covid, there's also a danger of adult's not being able to work, as people either self-isolate or are too ill to do their jobs. Remote won't necessarily fix this - partly because if you're ill at home you're still ill, but also because there are many jobs which need people on-site. If you get a huge peak at the same time, not only are hospitals overwhelmed - already happening in the UK - but other critical services are also endangered.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
There's a wide spectrum between full lockdown and zero precautions taken. We were never choosing between one or the other, and very few places actually went into full lockdown. Even some of the cities with the strictest regulations still felt like business as normal, albeit with masks, after about April or May of last year.
afiori 5y ago
For a good analisys of related questions i recommend: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness-much-more https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
hanniabu 5y ago
Let's not kid ourselves, there was never a proper lockdown. Barely anything changed besides working from home and kids having remote school for a few months. Nearly everything remained open with only half measures taken and most people ignored social isolation as well.
- spoonjim 5y ago

roenxi 5y ago

> the prevalence of Long COVID and other longer lasting changes. That, and it will also be interesting to discover how different it is from the ordinary flu. I remember the last time I had a proper flu (well before COVID) it was months before I felt like I'd gotten over it even though the visible symptoms cleared up in a week or so. The background rate of life-altering disease always seemed rather high to me. Life is far messier than what a "healthy/sick" binary can capture.

rjsw 5y ago

I would be interested to know if there has been any attempt to correlate Long COVID in children with them having prior allergic responses.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Another related question is whether “long COVID” (which feels imprecise to me), is something that should require everyone to lose their individual rights to decide what risks they undertake? In my opinion, if people are worried about it then they should just restrict themselves, rather than blocking everyone else from [going to school, opening their business, collecting rent, etc]. One reason I feel that way is that studies have shown that lingering issues like ARDS (which is now seemingly lumped into “long COVID”) are linked to obesity or vitamin D deficiency. It seems to me that limiting one individual’s freedom to accommodate the poor lifestyle choices of another individual is morally wrong. Lastly I think your closing comment that parents are highly likely to get infections from children is misleading. Numerous studies show children are less likely to transmit COVID (example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h...).